


lower your voice

by bareunloveliness



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Choking, Emotional Abuse, Implied homophobia, M/M, Mentioned Bugs, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, Physical Abuse, Unhealthy Relationships, Vomit, light Violence, mild asphyxiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28436808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bareunloveliness/pseuds/bareunloveliness
Summary: "i was thinking of enjolras growing up in a household where his parents never really let him argue about anything at all. Like everytime he would get fired up about anything they would just go "calm down" with the most bored voice or "lower your volume" and just, never letting him express himself. This of course changed when he finally met les amis but he never quite shook the instinct to shut up and get incredibly angry when someone tells him to "calm down" while he's talking"fulfilling a prompt from my friend gabe from the hoes for enjolras discord server!
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	lower your voice

**Author's Note:**

> did anyone ASK for angst? no. did i give it anyway? yes.  
> no beta we die like men. also this was a warm up for the next chapter of ['the most dangerous thing'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27987813/chapters/68552388) which is my angsty as fuck achilles come down songfic that i recommend.

Grantaire always liked to make fun of Enjolras. This is not news to anybody who met them, nor to the flies on the walls of the back room of the Cafe Musain. This was not even news to people who had never met either of them, like Eponine, who had stories told from Marius about his traumatizing last meeting with Les Amis D'ABC.

It should not be surprising then, either that Grantaire hit him where it hurt, aiming for the heart every single time, just to make sure he had one. He took low blows as a warm up. The marble target ran a group called the _Friends_ of the Oppressed, that is to say, not _The Genuinely Oppressed_. Enjolras had grown up as the only son of wealthy bourgeois (borderline aristocratic) parents. He tried to understand that he did not come from the same places as Grantaire, Bossuet, and Feuilly, three of the men who listened to words of revolution drip from his mouth like honey.

Enjolras chose to focus more on what they had in common; beating hearts and blood to spare. He rarely spoke of his upbringing, trying desperately to move past it. Grantaire saw this as a challenge and brought it up often, the brunet could only bring up what he knew about Enjolras' childhood, and all he knew was money.

Grantaire did not know about the days that Enjolras spent in a monk-like silence because he was a little too passionate about learning l'imparfait tense at school. When he returned home from class, he was chanting "ais, ais, ait" to himself, just thrilled to be learning. This earned a hit across his left cheek.

"Shut up. Good boys stay quiet when their fathers are reading."

Grantaire did not know about the meal that Enjolras, at thirteen years old, threw up in disgust, tears and vomit dripping down his sculptured face. He had tried to give a spare sou to a beggar that his family passed when returning home from a trip to Paris (they lived in the south), and was yanked away. At dinner, he burst into his first of many speeches on why it was important to not frown upon men for sitting in the dirt, but to frown upon the system that placed them there.

"Calm down, mon cher," his mother had said. "You talk too much about unimportant things."

Grantaire did not know about when Enjolras was eighteen years old, alone in his room, rehearsing a speech for a rally he was going to give at the local university. His father had burst through the door, seized him by the collar, and threw him against the wall, demanding that he quiet down.

"Lower your voice! What if the neighbors were to hear?" He snarled, afraid of the speech's controversial subject matter: the French Penal Code of 1791. Even though it was decades later, the law was still deeply criticized. Enjolras failed to understand why.

Grantaire only knew the Adonis, the Apollo, the Antinous in front of him, and not the struggles that carved him. And Grantaire liked to see him break.

"And that is why we must continue to preach Republicanism, even when it seems like the people do not want to listen. Especially if those people are artists and sculptors." His words were, admittedly, pointed. "We must follow through our promises and encourage them to rise."

Grantaire choked back a laugh. "To be scolded like a child in front of my fellow men; what about that implies equality and unity, Enjolras?" He poisioned Enjolras's name just by saying it, a metallic taste corrupting it.

"If you feel like my words apply to you, that is purely a coincidence that may require introspection from you," Enjolras sucked in a breath. He played into Grantaire's games far more than he cared to admit. It was a flaw in both of their behaviors that neither of them planned on adjusting.

"So you were there, at Richefeu's, then?" Grantaire said, as Enjolras never made his presence known that night, when Grantaire was meant to be a true _ami_ and failed at the task. "And you waited to mention it so you might rather express your disappointment in me in front of our peers?"

"My peers," Enjolras barked. "What would you have me do, privately scorn you?"

"Forgive me."

"No."

"Fine. Relish in my ineptitude. Do it once and be done with it."

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. "Fine. You are incapable of believing in anyone in this room and I have had little to no qualms about your disgracing this place where great thinkers meet to discuss ideals as you spend your time among us doing one of two activities. The first being quietly drinking yourself in a pointless stupor in which you believe yourself to be more amicable when you are actually just more _drunk_. The second is on occassion helpful, which is the most kind and generous comment I believe I will ever share with you, as you find holes in my arguments and allow me to make them stronger."

He took a breath. Grantaire drank and waited for him to continue.

"There is no issue in these two futile, wasteful events as you generally only bother me when your arguments grow too personal and less political," he said, allowing the anger inside him to fester and burst like a boil. It wasn't a beautiful thing to anyone except Grantaire. It shouldn't have been a beautiful thing to anyone. "But there is an issue when you demand my trust, demand my faith, and then express to me through your actions how little those things mean to you."

Ironic, wasn't it, how Enjolras insulted Grantaire's personal attacks with… you understand, yes?

The flies on the wall were buzzing.

"I understand that you do not care for the cause although I have, up until recently, held the belief that I could change that and you could be as great a man as Lamarque if you had half a care to try," Enjolras said firmly, sweat forming on his high brow. "But instead, you sit here and sabotage my attempts at change by lying to me and swearing that you will change the minds of the artists and sculptors when you have no intention of ever being useful, kind, or even humane were it to require you putting down the bottle for one. Goddamn. Second."

Enjolras did not notice he was yelling.

"Lower your voice," Grantaire said quietly, tears forming in twisted admiration and silent appreciation of Enjolras's attention. 

Those three words were too much; too much of a reminder of what Enjolras had gone through just to end up being told to shut up, calm down, and lower his voice by another bitter, angry man. They were too much.

Which is how his hands found themselves around Grantaire's throat. He wasn't going to squeeze any tighter than was necessary, as black stars clouded Grantaire's vision. Courfeyrac and Bahorel pulled him back as he realized what he was doing.

Grantaire looked up at him, regarded him highly, with glistening green eyes that saw so much that they never had before. He was hungry to see more. " Am I forgiven?"

Enjolras inhaled deeply, not realizing he was out of breath. "Yes."

The blond clasped the brunet's hand and shook it. All was well.

(Until the next time that Enjolras took Grantaire's hand.)

**Author's Note:**

> anyway join the [hoes for enjolras](https://discord.gg/Rufk5mFs47) discord server if you want to see me scream about my own fics and also if you want to give prompts i guess or to just hang out with some sick ass people.
> 
> also pls leave comments thank you.


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